Summer 2025 reading lists available for grades 5-12
The English Department and Hassenfeld librarians share summer reading lists for rising grades 5-12 and AP courses. View their suggestions at usn.org/reading. Lower School reading lists will be published before the last day of school.
By Freya Sachs, English Department Chair
What’s the best book you’ve read this year? What books might our students enjoy? What book would you recommend and why? Why do we ask students to read in the summer at all? What will we ask of them when we return to school in August?
These are some of the questions we ask each year as we compile, edit, revise, examine, and finalize our summer reading lists. We want students to find books they enjoy, discover stories they otherwise might not see, and find pieces of themselves and others in the worlds these books can offer. We hope reading becomes not just practical, but joyful.
To do this, we ask our community for recommendations — faculty across the school, alumni, students — and the English Department and Hassenfeld Library work together to finalize the lists and to make sure our library has copies accessible for students to borrow for the summer.
We hope you enjoy exploring the lists — one for each grade K-12 and for AP courses — discovering new authors or finding an old favorite waiting for you. If you need recommendations, we’ll be happy to help.
For the third time, the junior has earned recognition for her C-SPAN StudentCam documentary. Elected officials and a representative from the network honored her during High School Assembly on Friday, May 2.
Congratulations to Max Parker ’29, Anisha Nachnani ’32, Indy O’Hare ’32, and Lucas Lupu ’31, who took home the top prize at the USN Quiz Bowl Championship.
The English Department and Hassenfeld librarians share summer reading lists for rising grades 5-12 and AP courses. View their suggestions at usn.org/reading. Lower School reading lists will be published before the last day of school.
USN Mission: University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of Metropolitan Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.